Scotlight

A weekly inside look at the unique faces and personalities that make up The College of Wooster community.

Can you introduce yourself?

I’m Martin Zwergel and my pronouns are he/him. I’m in the class of ’26. I’m from Hampton Roads, Virginia.

Do you have a major or intended major yet?

Right now I’m looking at majoring in English and minoring in physics. I was thinking of double majoring but I’m not sure that would be healthy. The big issue is the course load. To put things in perspective, an English major and a physics minor together are 16 classes. The physics major by itself is 16 courses. So, not double majoring.

I do want to ask about your saxophone playing. People have probably heard you playing around campus. What led you to want to play outside?

Honestly it’s mostly an acoustics thing. I like playing outside because there’s less bounceback. If you’re familiar with some of the subculture of jazz history anecdotes, there’s kind of a famous example of saxophonist Sonny Rollins, who became really big in the 50s and 60s. He would go on top of a bridge and just play over the water because there’s no bounceback in the sound. The benefit is twofold: less of what you’re hearing is coming from how sound gets changed by the wall, so what you hear is close to what someone else would hear when they hear you playing. Also you kind of naturally build up a bigger sound when you’re hearing less of it coming back at you. So when you go to play for a gig or at a concert or a rehearsal or something and you start playing your instrument inside, it feels easy to get this huge sound that just fills up the room.

How long have you been playing?

About seven years. I started playing the saxophone in sixth grade.

Are you involved in any groups on campus?

I’m part of Wooster’s jazz combo and I’m going to try and get involved in the literary magazine.

What else do you like to do in your free time?

Free time? What’s that? When I have the time for it, I like reading. I’ve been trying to get back into writing fiction. That’s been a bit difficult, but I’m working on it.

What kinds of things do you like to read?

Anything I can get my hands on. Sometimes I’ll have a consistent genre or thing that I’m into. I’d say the last big series I read all the way through was “The Expanse.” It’s really good. If you’ve seen the show and you like it, the books are way better. If you like the show, definitely check out the books. If you don’t like the show, check out the books because they’re better. I’ve been kind of all over the place since then. I’m getting into Tara Westover’s memoir, “Educated.” That’s been really interesting.

How have your first couple months of college been?

It’s going. I’ve had a couple of hiccups here and there but that seems pretty normal. I’m figuring it out. The College makes it very easy to recover when you screw up, which is good because you’re gonna screw up.

In a trivia game, what category would you dominate?

Probably jazz music trivia.